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Smart self-aware robots might be a bit much (though one can always tinker with some "ghost in the machine" scenarios of AIs controlling dumbbots to wave some it away), but what about power armors, mechs and cybernetics?

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I love a good Cyber-punk style setting. As far as RPG's go there are only a handful. In a sense I can see this setting being the stage were Humanity having witness the power of the Novas, knowing they are still out there, they are trying to obtain the powers of the Gods they chased off. The only means at their disposal is artificial, mechanical, and self modification. The biggest issue going forward is not going far enough with it. Cyber-Punk requires a total commitment to the idea of transhumanism. Humanity evolved by and through technology. The means tons of cyber-ware, bio-ware, tech items, matrix style internet manipulation are a must. I think that having a bit more history that fills in the gaps between Aberrant and Aeon will be interesting. We may even get to see some of the first stages of Project Pandora. Or those stages are a reaction to this setting. Either way it sounds interesting.

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Power armor/mechs was a minor part of the setting-I believe the VARGs are somewhere between the two-but one that didn't get featured all that much except very early on. Cybernetics were mostly not a thing, really. I believe cybernetics are mentioned in passing in regards to Japan/Nippon, but this wasn't ever expanded upon in detail that I recall.

Cyber-Punk requires a total commitment to the idea of transhumanism.

Really, cyberpunk is the opposite of transhumanism. The tenants of cyberpunk is that increasing technology leads to a loss of humanity and a disconnect of the natural world. Life becomes cheap and disposable. Machines and technology dominate, and people must become machines in order to survive and compete economically. Rebellion and revolution is necessary to prevent all of humanity from essentially squandering itself. We will be little better than robots, and it'll suck.

Transhumanism, on the flip side, states that technology is wonderful and freeing, and that we wouldn't become inhuman, but better than human - free from fear, free from prejudice, immortal and possibly truly free. We'll all be robots, and it'll be awesome.

So, the thing about Anima is whether the game chooses to illustrate the technology in revolves around as something ultimately glorious and freeing, or something destructive and dangerously distracting.

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Power armor/mechs was a minor part of the setting-I believe the VARGs are somewhere between the two-but one that didn't get featured all that much except very early on. Cybernetics were mostly not a thing, really. I believe cybernetics are mentioned in passing in regards to Japan/Nippon, but this wasn't ever expanded upon in detail that I recall.

Excellent analysis, Wolfgar. Cyberpunk is indeed more about the departing from humanity than the becoming a transhuman entity.
Just a minor correction, the cyberware in Asia Ascendant is about half as extensive as the whole super-science chapter in Adventure! (5pages for cyberware vs 10 for super-science) - while i think i follow your drive that it was semi-unofficial and never really much mentioned before - the cyberware rules form a solid base from which to infer more.

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I found the old Trinity Universe to actually be a very Safe Tech setting, probably in part due to the Aeon Society's meddling. It struck me as a natural cultural reaction to the Aberrant War that humanity and all its foibles would become the social high standard. Afterall many folk who had lived through the Nova era would look back on the superhumans with disgust and pity rather then envy. So the human ideal would shift towards embracing humanity as is rather then going after some warped ideal of perfection.
Of course you would get outliers, cultures do differ after all, like the Japanese who turned into something frankly startling compared to the rest of the world. Anima seems to play with the idea of an emerging counter culture being born in the after years of the Aberrant War, when people are suffering all across the world and life doesn't seem to really be getting better, escaping into VR or painting the harshness of reality over with AR seems natural then take that further with people who just want to forget the terrible things in the world and your stage is set for stories that would have made Philip K. Dick proud.

Man's unfailing capacity to believe what he prefers to be true rather than what the evidence shows to be likely and possible has always astounded me. We long for a caring Universe which will save us from our childish mistakes, and in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary we will pin all our hopes on the slimmest of doubts. God has not been proven not to exist, therefore he must exist.--Academician Prokhor Zakharov

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Does Anima have anything to with the Possession Crisis mentioned in the Aberrant Cult write up? I know it happened earlier in the timeline (before the Shanghai Accords) but...
Also is "Doll house" inspiration for the Anima era?

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Now that we've seen the official timeline (at least "official" as in "the events that precede that Aeon setting"; not "official" as in "the inescapable events that follow Aberrant or any other earlier setting"), and it's referenced how this tech gets outlawed, I do wonder...

1) Is it illegal in Nippon, or does it fall in the genre of cybertech in-play there that the rest of the world doesn't use?

2) Are illegal memory tech blackmarkets a thing in the Aeon era?

3) If this tech's dominance in the Anima era hadn't been cracked down on - what would the odds have been of the world heading into a Dollhouse style Neuropocalypse?

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1) I'd say that it's either illegal or heavily regulated in Nippon.
2) The thing about letting a genie out of the bottle is that you can't or it back in. Yes, a black market for invasive mental hardtech would be a thing in Æon.
3) My understanding is that this tech was cracked down on precisely because a Dollhouse-style neuropocalypse was narrowly avoided.